


There is Room For You Here

by stolasbird



Category: Counter/weight, Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Other, we could've made them look like anything but we made them look like a giant therapist's couch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 00:49:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8946517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stolasbird/pseuds/stolasbird
Summary: A short vignette about Loyalty and anxiety.





	

There was no real reason to leave the Divine, he thought.

Of course he _could_ , and sometimes did. For mundane things. To breathe the air and remind himself of the duty of being a Candidate. To look at Vox and keep himself grounded.

But most days...most weeks. It was just easier to stay inside.

He spent a lot of time in the cockpit, chatting amicably with the banks and bulwarks of systems and screens that made up the forefront of Loyalty's brain. The Divine themselves was often quiet in response, but Kobus could feel their appreciation of the kept company occasionally, a layer of loneliness slowly pulled away like a peeled wall of paint in their shared mind. It had not occurred to Kobus until very recently how startling it was that Loyalty could even experience the concept of loneliness - and when he slept, he could feel the sheer bulwark of that emotion in their dreams, looking down on him with a mixture of amusement and pride. 

Kobus awoke from a nightmare one night, sitting upright on the gel platform that served him both as a bed and a tactile interface. The mechanical cords that kept him anchored and aware of Loyalty rustled with the sudden movement, and when the boy looked up into the dark of the machine's corridors, a single dim red light turned on in the distance and seemed to stare back at him. 

"Sorry," he said into the dark. And then, embarrassed, "I had a bad dream."

The light turned off, and there was a great sound like a dragon's sigh. Kobus felt the phantom sensation of being touched on the forehead gently. 

He laid back down and went to bed, eventually settling into a more peaceful sleep.

 

Some days after, the cockpit had finally grew too littered with Kobus' trinkets and trash to remain comfortable for either Divine or Candidate. Loyalty produced both nutrients and water for Kobus, but he couldn't live on these things alone, and so often nervously passed along grocery lists to the Vox Lux g-men that occasionally hailed Loyalty to check on him. A single pulsing red light dominated the console at the center of the cockpit, demanding attention through cups of noodles and discarded bottle water. 

"Okay, okay, sorry, fine." 

He organized, placing the trash into a bin that he'd empty later into a chute that emptied into what Kobus suspected was an incinerator, but he was never quite sure with his Divine. Loyalty's corridors seemed to change overnight sometimes.

As he worked, he chatted to the console, not so much performing conversation as narrating whatever was on his mind. It was a calming ritual, for both of them, and soon the centered red light in the room died down. Kobus smiled to himself.

He sits down in the command chair. He pulls up neurovids - first the educational ones, and then a few animated movies from the Diaspora. He strongly suspects that Loyalty disapproves of the latter, but they never reprimand him for watching them. When the communication from Ibex enters his peripheral vision, it takes a polite cough to get Kobus' attention away from a depiction of a rigger space battle.

"Ah - " he blinks frantically and turns to the screen. He smiles uneasily when Ibex looks at him with amusement in his eyes. The smile turns to a small frown when the Candidate of Righteousness asks him to open a path to Vox so he can speak with Grace and Vicuna. 

"Do I have to come?" Kobus asks frankly and quietly, after a moment.

"I'm afraid so." 

He sighs. He answers Ibex's small talk the best as possible until he spots a good spot to exit the conversation, and does so, slumping down in the chair. He is suddenly exhausted by even the most casual of social contact, and the idea of being in a room with both Vicuna and Ibex sends tiny tremors of anxiety through his digits. The fidgeting seems to also irritate Loyalty, as the panels making up the front of the cockpit shudder, turn to black briefly, and become windows into the starry void of space. After a moment, they flicker again, and display a perfect recreation of the sky of Vox, situated above a plain of perfect green.

The message sinks through to Kobus. He exhales. He tries to calm down, and eventually succeeds. Still, he suddenly seems too small in the context of the cockpit, let alone in the giant body of the Divine.

There's no real reason to ever leave, he thinks.  

 

 


End file.
